D&D General What is player agency to you?

[pemerton]

There are two philosophies here and in both the players have plenty of agency.

This is obviously controversial, given that my dislike of GM-driven, setting-oriented play is caused precisely by the lack of player agency.

 

[mamba]

This is obviously controversial, given that my dislike of GM-driven, setting-oriented play is caused precisely by the lack of player agency.

I didn’t say the same level… not going to haggle about what you think constitutes ‘plenty’

 

[FrogReaver]

Another hopefully constructive addition.

The chance of success for a dice roll. Do higher or lower chances of success impact player agency or is the question of player agency independent.

I think some will say players that have success more often weighted in their favor have greater control over the narrative and thus greater agency.

I think others will say that player agency is independent of the chance for success because whatever the chance of success you had a meaningful choice to pick that or a different action.

Thoughts, opinions?

 

[Oofta]

As I've posted many times in this thread, including in reply to you, "narrative control" is a red herring, a furphy, and not the main point.

The main issue is about how the GM decides framing and consequences. In high player agency RPGing, those decisions are highly responsive to player-authored priorities for their PCs.

So how do you describe a player's successful lore check or deciding what a successful check look like or similar?

You're nitpicking terminology. Terminology I've seen people that play PbtA games use. Perhaps I'm not using the correct term. You're know what I mean. If that is not the correct term, what is? Something that doesn't take two dozen words?

 

[AnotherGuy]

At our table, players (not the DM) get to decide the order of the crisps and other snacks which are to be opened and consumed.

 

[Oofta]

At our table, players (not the DM) get to decide the order of the crisps and other snacks which are to be opened and consumed.

Now that is a great example of player agency.

 

[Oofta]

-- nm --

 

[Manbearcat]

Another hopefully constructive addition.

The chance of success for a dice roll. Do higher or lower chances of success impact player agency or is the question of player agency independent.

I think some will say players that have success more often weighted in their favor have greater control over the narrative and thus greater agency.

I think others will say that player agency is independent of the chance for success because whatever the chance of success you had a meaningful choice to pick that or a different action.

Thoughts, opinions?

Its an interesting question. My answer would be "it depends on the dynamics of the system in question."

So for instance, take a game where player agency is overwhelmingly (or exclusively) cited at (a) the PC build stage where they are meant to build toward action resolution suites that defeat target numbers and (b) the ability for players to navigate a sequence of obstacles (moment to moment, session to session, adventuring day to adventuring day, etc) and martial the stuff in (a) to defeat target numbers.

Ok, we still have a gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang of question to answer about (a) and (b). How well is (a) suited to the task to reliably defeat the obstacles of (b)? Is there a GM veto on (a)? How does "when does any given situation resolve successfully, unsuccessfully, or become complicated (and how)" get sorted out? How do target numbers get decided? Is there a procedure for those things? Is it transparent and table-facing? What about consequences for failure? How do those get foregrounded/telegraphed and what types of consequences? The reason why these consequence-related questions matter is because it informs whether or not the players can adequately manage their decision-tree and settle on a course of action.

And even before these questions above we have the all-important question of "how do we settle matters of what the premise of play actually is in the first place? Who decides on what the nature of protagonism is and how that propels the trajectory of play?"

So here is an easy confounder to "does a lower than D&D-typical (lets call it 67-75 %) success rate equate to less agency." Mouse Guard is the 2nd game in the BW family of games. I don't have anything quantitative for you, but over the course of any given Season (which is probably somewhere around 3-4 Missions, look at them like D&D adventuring days), the overall success rate for the Mouse Guard is probably somewhere around 55-60 % outside of Conflicts. That is less than 67-75 %. However, here are several system dynamics to Mouse Guard in relation to that success rate:

* Most importantly, Mouse Guard is a Fail Forward system. Failure means either "Success with a Condition/cost" or "Twist (situation becomes complicated by a new obstacle or escalated situation)." That is a big deal by itself.

* Players are incentivized to Fail in two different ways; (i) they need to strategically accrue failures to advance all of their PC stuff and (ii) they need to risk failure via using Traits against them to earn Checks (which power the Player's Turn; think Downtime in Blades in the Dark since you're familiar with it) or use Traits to break ties to outright Fail a test. These incentive structures and "failure minigame" affords agency.

* Players have widgets/handles/currency to spend/risk in order to amplify their dice pools on any given test. This resource martialing minigame is a large part of agency in this game.

* Obstacles are Factored so there is a codified, table-facing procedure for setting Obstacles. This informs player decision-trees and approach to any given obstacle. Better informed players to manage their decision-tree equals more agency.

* The Mission Loop is codified and straight-forward so players know what their "work-day" looks like (Test/Conflict to journey from safe haven to Mission Obstacle 1 > If Twist then handle, otherwise Mission Obstacle 2 > If Twist then handle, otherwise Test/Conflict to establish a safe haven in the wild or journey back to a settlement > Player's Turn). Transparent, table-facing loop means better informed player decision-trees across the whole loop; more agency.


There are plenty of other things as well, but those are the high points as it pertains to % success. So TLDR; its complicated and system-dependent.

 

[Umbran]

Forgive me as I play the world's smallest violin for the poor oppressed monarch and DM who suddenly find their authority bound by rules (of law).

Mod Note:
While you may feel it justified, this approach largely eliminated your ability to have this as a reasoned discussion, and lost you the moral high ground.

I find your comment just as insulting as you may have found any comment I've ever made on this forum about narrative-based games.

Once you found it insulting, you probably should have disengaged.

Neither of you looks like you are particularly open-minded about your positions at this point. Continuing in this manner will not turn out well. Please stop.

Systems that principally and rules-wise constrain GMs curtail GM agency via oppression.

...how is it that GM having veto authority over all actions doesn't likewise curtail player agency via oppression?

Folks, once we start referring to how we pretend to be elves in terms of "oppression", our language has turned to emotional loading that is entirely inappropriate to the scale of the issues.

If we cannot keep the rhetoric in perspective, this thread will close.

 

[FrogReaver]

Its an interesting question. My answer would be "it depends on the dynamics of the system in question."

So for instance, take a game where player agency is overwhelmingly (or exclusively) cited at (a) the PC build stage where they are meant to build toward action resolution suites that defeat target numbers and (b) the ability for players to navigate a sequence of obstacles (moment to moment, session to session, adventuring day to adventuring day, etc) and martial the stuff in (a) to defeat target numbers.

Ok, we still have a gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang of question to answer about (a) and (b). How well is (a) suited to the task to reliably defeat the obstacles of (b)? Is there a GM veto on (a)? How does "when does any given situation resolve successfully, unsuccessfully, or become complicated (and how)" get sorted out? How do target numbers get decided? Is there a procedure for those things? Is it transparent and table-facing? What about consequences for failure? How do those get foregrounded/telegraphed and what types of consequences? The reason why these consequence-related questions matter is because it informs whether or not the players can adequately manage their decision-tree and settle on a course of action.

And even before these questions above we have the all-important question of "how do we settle matters of what the premise of play actually is in the first place? Who decides on what the nature of protagonism is and how that propels the trajectory of play?"

So here is an easy confounder to "does a lower than D&D-typical (lets call it 67-75 %) success rate equate to less agency." Mouse Guard is the 2nd game in the BW family of games. I don't have anything quantitative for you, but over the course of any given Season (which is probably somewhere around 3-4 Missions, look at them like D&D adventuring days), the overall success rate for the Mouse Guard is probably somewhere around 55-60 % outside of Conflicts. That is less than 67-75 %. However, here are several system dynamics to Mouse Guard in relation to that success rate:

* Most importantly, Mouse Guard is a Fail Forward system. Failure means either "Success with a Condition/cost" or "Twist (situation becomes complicated by a new obstacle or escalated situation)." That is a big deal by itself.

* Players are incentivized to Fail in two different ways; (i) they need to strategically accrue failures to advance all of their PC stuff and (ii) they need to risk failure via using Traits against them to earn Checks (which power the Player's Turn; think Downtime in Blades in the Dark since you're familiar with it) or use Traits to break ties to outright Fail a test. These incentive structures and "failure minigame" affords agency.

* Players have widgets/handles/currency to spend/risk in order to amplify their dice pools on any given test. This resource martialing minigame is a large part of agency in this game.

* Obstacles are Factored so there is a codified, table-facing procedure for setting Obstacles. This informs player decision-trees and approach to any given obstacle. Better informed players to manage their decision-tree equals more agency.

* The Mission Loop is codified and straight-forward so players know what their "work-day" looks like (Test/Conflict to journey from safe haven to Mission Obstacle 1 > If Twist then handle, otherwise Mission Obstacle 2 > If Twist then handle, otherwise Test/Conflict to establish a safe haven in the wild or journey back to a settlement > Player's Turn). Transparent, table-facing loop means better informed player decision-trees across the whole loop; more agency.


There are plenty of other things as well, but those are the high points as it pertains to % success. So TLDR; its complicated and system-dependent.

Can we take some of the complication out by comparing a hypothetical d&d with higher or lower chances for success to actual d&d. Same for mouse guard, etc? Does that make the analysis easier?