D&D General What is player agency to you?

[mamba]

I mean, every published adventure is an example of lower agency play.

by definition, but that is true for the DM as well

 

[mamba]

Combine it with their next sentence.

There is no misunderstanding. This DM does what HE wants to do regardless of what the players want.

if you think that is all trad play is... then I cannot help you there

 

[Oofta]

...
So let's imagine two groups of players in different games, but facing the same obstacle. Group A can approach that obstacle in a few ways: combat, stealth, magic, or diplomacy.

Group B can approach the obstacle through only combat or magic.

You're saying these two groups have the same amount of agency? I don't know if I agree... but I suppose it depends very much on what narrowed down the n for Group B, or what allowed Group A to have a higher n.

That's before we get into the nature of the obstacle and what the players are trying to accomplish and all that kind of stuff, which is also very relevant.

Depends on if group B limited their potential options because of previous choices. Perhaps their was some benefit or goal associated with not having the option of stealth or diplomacy.

But I was assuming group A had 4 reasonable options and group B had 4 similarly reasonable options. They may be completely different, perhaps group B has something they have some other resource they can spend to achieve their goal or risk some penalty. The exact details will vary by game, although options have should have roughly the same risk and reward in context of whatever game they're playing.

 

[Oofta]

I mean, every published adventure is an example of lower agency play.

It's one of the reasons I don't use published mods.

 

[FrogReaver]

The GM, in framing and in narrating consequences, has regard to player-established priorities for their PCs.

I'm reasonably familiar with this sort of RPGing. You are describing the GM engaging in framing, and consequence narration, having regard primarily to their authorship of their world. They provide the dramatic need - via the "multiple threads" - and the players then align the play of their PCs to those - "choose from multiple options".

I'm trying to be 100% constructive here - which is hard to do while disagreeing.

I'd suggest that the D&D play being described transcends the description of choosing from multiple options. Some options may very well be presented (often for practical reasons - as some players just don't have the 'it' whatever the 'it' is to come up with something they want to do in the game completely on their own - and I know because in the past I've often struggled with that..) But as long as you are in a game with players that can come up with what to do all on their own - then a menu of options aren't even necessary. I don't know of a better term for this kind of play than 'player driven'. In many ways it's very similar to what you call 'player driven' play.

That said I think this kind of 'player driven' play is also very different in some respects from what you call 'player driven'. Though I'm not going to try to name the differences because i don't think there's any way I'll get that described adequately such that we will agree.

I guess that was a long way of saying 'choose from multiple options' isn't really an adequate description of this play.

 

[pemerton]

I mean, every published adventure is an example of lower agency play.

I think this is up for grabs.

It seems to be true of most TSR/WotC modules since the mid-80s. I'm going to conjecture that it's true of most Paizo/PF modules.

I don't think it's true of (say) White Plume Mountain. In White Plume Mountain, the situation is essentially static. The players' job is to solve it. There is no dramatic need at all (on either player or GM side) - the theft of the weapons is purely a framing/flavour device, like the notion that the earth is under attack from aliens in some Space Invaders variant.

But WPM-type play - or, more generally, classic dungeon-crawling through largely static situations of the sort Gygax addresses in his PHB - has been a minority approach for 40+ years now. Even Gygax's DMG, which is published one year after his PHB, shows signs of the move away from it.

 

[pemerton]

yeah, given that you kinda have a story, things must remain 'solveable', I assume that is not really all that different with narrative games, unless they have no real goal in mind

It's radically different. The whole notion of "hooks", "clues" etc has no work to do in the play of Burning Wheel or Dungeon World.

It can have work to do in Torchbearer, which is why - as I've mentioned several times - that game is an intermediate case.

 

[mamba]

It's radically different. The whole notion of "hooks", "clues" etc has no work to do in the play of Burning Wheel or Dungeon World.

It can have work to do in Torchbearer, which is why - as I've mentioned several times - that game is an intermediate case.

yes, I understood that part, but somewhere between BW and your 4e there is a wide range, so I figured some still fall more on the 'goal' side

 

[pemerton]

Also, plenty of people term it narrativist play. A couple of recent examples:

The term narrativist comes from Ron Edwards, and is being used as he used it. It has nothing to do with what you and others have called "player narrative control".

What terminology would you use for a player is adding to the fiction of the world?

If they say what their PC thinks or does or remembers, I would call it playing their PC and normally also action declaration for their PC.

If you mean, say, spending a widget to make something true in the fiction that is not connected to their PC, then I'm happy to call it "player narrative control" if that's the preferred terminology. What I am saying is that this is not a very significant contributor to player agency in high player agency RPGs.

I'm trying to be 100% constructive here - which is hard to do while disagreeing.

I'd suggest that the D&D play being described transcends the description of choosing from multiple options. Some options may very well be presented (often for practical reasons - as some players just don't have the 'it' whatever the 'it' is to come up with something they want to do in the game completely on their own - and I know because in the past I've often struggled with that..) But as long as you are in a game with players that can come up with what to do all on their own - then a menu of options aren't even necessary. I don't know of a better term for this kind of play than 'player driven'. In many ways it's very similar to what you call 'player driven' play.

That said I think this kind of 'player driven' play is also very different in some respects from what you call 'player driven'. Though I'm not going to try to name the differences because i don't think there's any way I'll get that described adequately such that we will agree.

I guess that was a long way of saying 'choose from multiple options' isn't really an adequate description of this play.

I'm perfectly happy to accept that there is more play out there than I'm aware of that (using Forge terminology) I would call "vanilla narrativism".

But there are things that make me doubtful.

I GMed vanilla narrativist AD&D in the second half of the 1980s, and vanilla narrativist Rolemaster for around 20 years from 1990. When I discovered RPGs like HeroWars, and Burning Wheel, and Maelstrom Storytelling, and read critical accounts of them (mostly on the Forge), I was able to relate what was being described to my own play. And to improve my own play, too. (Eg I cribbed techniques from Paul Czege's Nicotine Girls for use in what was, theme-and-trope-wise, pretty standard FRPGing using Rolemaster.)

Later on, when 4e D&D was being developed, I was able (i) to see the influence of those games on its design, and (ii) to use approaches and advice from those games to enhance my 4e GMing.

The correlative of the above is that, whenever I read someone attacking the Forge, or the approach of the games that the Forge analysed and/or produced; bemoaning "player entitlement" or characterising a narrativist GM as "servicing the players" and just "giving them what they want"; and generally asserting the centrality of the GM in establishing the priorities for play, exercising near-unilateral control over the content of the shared fiction, etc; I infer that they are not doing what I was doing in my vanilla narrativist days.

Generally, from their descriptions of their approach, they seem to me to be GMing games that are similar to those I saw going on around me in the 90s: setting-heavy, with the GM establishing a lot of "behind-the-scenes" plot elements that are then used to drive play; and the players' main role being to identify these things and engage with them via their PCs.

Obviously all my inferences here are defeasible. But where's the contrary evidence?

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't think we can because the relationship of agency and success rate is multivariate and dependent upon several variables (which is what I was trying to illustrate). And each of those variables are (or at least might be) multidimensional.

Here is an easy historical lament that you hear from players of martial characters talking about noncombat resolution (the lament is about their lack of agency in these situations):

* Martial character has a noncombat suite of abilities that lets them average 85 % success rate. Pretty high, right?

* While across a large distribution of tests, they sit at 85 %, target numbers can fluctuate pretty significantly to reduce individual test success rate dramatically (perhaps down to 55 %).

* Player doesn't know the target number and/or doesn't know how it might be derived.

* Failure is hard failure; whiffing and kersplatting. And hard failure can mean the situation has gone sideways if the GM says/feels its gone sideways.

* Unfortunately, the martial PC player doesn't know and can't well-project how many tests they're going to have to successfully resolve in any given situation. Might be 3, might be 5. 5 suddenly means "things going totally sideways" is absolutely in play. Across the course of two conflicts? Its basically a sure thing.

* The martial PC player doesn't have a suite of widgets/handles/resources to draw upon to discretionally amplify their odds of success based on their analysis/projection of the unfolding situation/consequence-suite in front of them.

* There is absolutely 0 incentive for failure. Failure is all bad, all the time. No "failure minigame" to power advancement or power Downtime (or whatever).

* GM doesn't telegraph/foreground consequences particularly well so the player isn't well-informed on their potential suite of consequences based on their approach to overcome the obstacle and ability/skill deployed.


You add all of that up and/or you take several key components of that together? Despite that high success rate on any given test, you are in a relatively information poor environment + a resource martialing/management-poor environment + situation sideways stakes on all tests + all the incentive structures pointing in one direction (succeed or potentially sideways).

First of all, this is an absolutely great explanation for why giving the player a chance of success may not actually equate to giving him agency. I mean it's absolutely masterful!

So I want to offer this generalization. If a player has no agency in a situation at all then changing the chances for success or failure will have no impact on agency. I think that's 100% true. I don't know if anyone would argue with that insight.

But to me that's not exploring the really interesting case: suppose we are talking about a case where a player does have agency. How does changing the chances for success change his agency? I think everything I asked before is still applicable in this space and it's one i'd love to hear your thoughts on.

EDIT - Addendum.

Ok, now lets consider all of the above EXCEPT...the player of the martial character, through intricate and complex PC build interactions, generate action resolution numbers that consistently overwhelm the mathematical foundation of the system. 100 % all day long.

What now? Is that "more agency?" What I would say about that paradigm is follows:

* The entirety of "agency" expressed in the proposed game engine and in the proposed play is in "deck-building." Its all pre-play. Can you generate a character, before play, that overwhelms the game's numerical chassis?

* Ok so what happens during play? Well, during actually play, we are now existing in a 0 agency environment. Decision-tree management, resource management, hard decisions where you struggle to fight for what you believe/prioritize ethos quandries, etc etc...irrelevant; kaput. All matters of agency have been settled before play even began.

So, despite the ability to generate 100 % success rate in action resolution because of the dynamics of intricate character building (pre-play), actual table time, actual play features no agency whatsoever. I think most people would call this a broken game or degenerate CharOps or something.

Again, great explanation but also falls under the no agency category. I think you are right to have broken the problem up along those lines - but I'd still love to hear your thoughts on things outside 'no agency to begin with' case.