D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Raiztt]

Maybe I can help a bit? In Dungeon World there's no part of game play where a player gets to state any fiction outright (the GM should ask questions and use the answers, but it's up to the GM to initiate that). So the GM still authors the fiction, but they are constrained to do so according to DW's rules about how it must relate to the PCs. This the GM will talk about them and what happens as their needs collide with the world around them. The GM can't say things are out of bounds of the fiction simply because they don't feel like telling a certain story, but they do get to choose what it all looks like.

This is why, to me in my subjective tastes, PbtA isn't a "game" as I understand it and more of like a group story telling session. A slightly more complex group improv.

 

[Oofta]

My point was, instead you sent me off on some GM conceived and desired dragon hunt. Obviously players can practice obstinate play and keep rejecting every GM overture. That may work fine in some games, not as well in others.

The ultimate point with Narrativist play and this kind of agency is narr play simply constantly refocuses on player concerns. Like in DW you could hand me a black arrow (soft move, part of a front) but you can't block my attempt to get an audience if I trigger a move that has that fiction, though the move MIGHT be able to fail. I will surely at least get to toss the dice.

I think the idea that traditional play can't be player focused is a strawman. It certainly isn't a given that any given game is player goal centric, but it certainly can be. I know my games are. I always have multiple threads going, multiple options the players can choose from. If someone has an individual goal, I'll try to figure out how to fit it in.

I just don't see how a narrative game can be that much more focused on individual wants in needs that can't also have similar fiction arcs in standard D&D. If we don't see that much in D&D I suspect it's largely because the people playing the game aren't exactly clamoring for it, it's not what they want or need in a game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am really curious about something. Suppose, (for whatever reason), you're sitting down at my table for session zero at the start of a new group or 'campaign'. I give you the broad-brush strokes/bullet points of the game world as I've envisioned it. Nothing massively detailed, something like "Ok, here's a map, here are some major countries, here are some of the major world events from the recent past, and here is where I'd like to start us out at".
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‎ As per your preferences, have we already strayed too far from your preferred play style?

Probably a matter of degree. Many Narrativist games have substantial 'myth' pre established. Actually something like Stonetop has a very specific premise. It's just not dictating the nature of what the PCs experience as to how it relates to them, or maybe in some narr games it's more how 'who I am' relates to the action.

 

[Raiztt]

I think player "authorship" would be a better term than player "agency" at this point.

Some people (myself) aim for a game with a high degree of "agency" but not "authorship" - at least not any more authorship than someone has in their actual reality. Which is to say, things are happening to you, how do you re-act/what do you do?

You might call this the "tyranny of reality".

 

[soviet]

I think player "authorship" would be a better term than player "agency" at this point.

Some people (myself) aim for a game with a high degree of "agency" but not "authorship" - at least not any more authorship than someone has in their actual reality. Which is to say, things are happening to you, how do you re-act/what do you do?

You might call this the "tyranny of reality".

No this is not correct. Agency (for example, 'my abilities work') is not necessarily the same as authorship ('And the noble I meet is...'). They may sometimes go together but they don't have to at all. The GM can still make all decisions of who the noble is and what they want.

 

[Raiztt]

No this is not correct. Agency (for example, 'my abilities work') is not necessarily the same as authorship ('And the noble I meet is...'). They may sometimes go together but they don't have to at all. The GM can still make all decisions of who the noble is and what they want.

I don't think that "my abilities work" is a given, or an example of agency.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Maybe I can help a bit? In Dungeon World there's no part of game play where a player gets to state any fiction outright (the GM should ask questions and use the answers, but it's up to the GM to initiate that). So the GM still authors the fiction, but they are constrained to do so according to DW's rules about how it must relate to the PCs. This the GM will talk about them and what happens as their needs collide with the world around them. The GM can't say things are out of bounds of the fiction simply because they don't feel like telling a certain story, but they do get to choose what it all looks like.

Yup. And clearly it works for a lot of people, but it is not my cup of tea.

 

[soviet]

I don't think that "my abilities work" is a given, or an example of agency.

Of course it's an example of agency. If we play in identical games except that in mine I can always get an audience if I ask for one, and in yours the GM can veto it whenever they wish, I have more agency than you do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is why, to me in my subjective tastes, PbtA isn't a "game" as I understand it and more of like a group story telling session. A slightly more complex group improv.

I wouldn't say its not a game, but I do feel it is a different type of game from what I am familiar with and enjoy as an RPG. I would prefer they were called something else, but a lot of people really don't like what they think of as an RPG not being called an RPG.

 

[Raiztt]

Of course it's an example of agency. If we play in identical games except that in mine I can always get an audience if I ask for one, and in yours the GM can veto it whenever they wish, I have more agency than you do.

No, it's not, because we don't even agree on what agency means.