D&D General What is player agency to you?

I said 'your side', not 'you'. I am not really keeping track of who said what exactly over 100+ pages ;)
Okay. Can you name one case where someone "on my side" argued that if you ever say no, even a single time, no matter what the reason, you've destroyed the player's agency?

Because it seems to me you're making a Kilimanjaro out of a single sand grain.
 

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A few thoughts - no accusations.

This point is probably more semantics but most of these discussions seem to boil down to that - at least in part. I think there's a difference between 'creating the world' and 'driving play'. The D&D DM still creates the world in this particular subset of play. Players choose where to go and what to do in that world. But as long as the world is large and accessible enough then that means the players can drive play toward just about anything in a general sense. Now specifics might be a different story. Players don't get carte blanche to drive play toward very specific elements that they come up with - though most dm's will work with them to get something in the ballpark added to the fiction for them to interact with. This later type of 'driving play' seems to be more of what you have in mind, whereas the former is what I have in mind.


What can be offered for evidence?

*Note I'd say playing this way is definitely a minority. IME it seems most D&D players respond better to a menu of choices and so most of the time a menu of choices is what is provided - but even if it is, most DM's aren't going to force one of the choices from that menu if the players want something not on the menu (obviously in a high DM prep game there's some external consideration given by players toward what's already been prepped - but ultimately they still have the choice of doing things that lead places the DM hasn't prepped for).
Evidence would be actual play, or descriptions of GMing techniques, that show how player agency is being foregrounded.

By chance a link to this was recently posted: How to make a Fantasy Sandbox

Look at step 33: Make up a rumor chart with 10 to 20 items that feeds the players into the encounter and plots you created in above. That is what I mean by the GM being the one to author the dramatic needs, and thus drive play. Without knowing for sure, I'd expect that it (together with step 21: Look at your notes and come up with two to four plots that ties one or more locales together. Write a paragraph or two on each.) is similar to what @Oofta has in mind when talking about providing players with multiple options.
 

Okay. Can you name one case where someone "on my side" argued that if you ever say no, even a single time, no matter what the reason, you've destroyed the player's agency?

Because it seems to me you're making a Kilimanjaro out of a single sand grain.
once, no, but then it was always 'your side' that made 'our' once into 'all the time' and then talked about reduced agency.

If we all agree this happening every once in a while has no impact on agency, then what were we arguing about for the last 100+ pages?
 

The difference between the dice decide and another participant decides is vast.
not to me. I understand the conceptual difference, it simply does not matter much. It follows the rules. Notice you said combat, and we not once had an interference in combat in our examples. It came up a few times when 'your side' was asking, but that is it.
 

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.
Honestly, I don't think it has anything much to do with 'choosing from options'. I think if we are going to really elucidate this whole aspect of agency we have to look at the ACTUAL differences in the two types of play, primarily trad (mainly simulationist, though variable, but always with setting/situation as a focus); vs Narrativist, with characters as the focus. When I say focus, I mean that which is the guiding element or originating impetus in terms of what fiction is deployed into the game next.

In Trad play there is an environment, which is prepared. It may not cover everything, and it may contain varying amounts of meta-plot, etc. but it lays out environments and situations; maps, rooms, NPCs, plans plots and motives, and usually envisages a general course through which play might move. Again, the could be more or less fleshed out, linear, non-linear, or beyond non-linear could be designed as a 'sand box'. Players may well be allowed to assert certain amounts of control over the fiction beyond their mere character's persons, or not. Techniques may be employed, or simply a social contract, under which the action goes in a specific direction, or the GM may be expected to improvise or author additional situations and environments whenever the PCs 'run off the map'. What is most characteristic however is that the focus is on these situations/setting/environment. The play loop is basically GM revelation of fiction, players declarations of actions intended to mitigate any threats and explore the current location, followed by GM revelation of whatever new location is moved into.

Character-focused narrativist play consists of the GM reflecting on the character's goals, situation, relationships, etc., discerning what will put pressure on them, and describing that (all with regard to past fiction, possibly drawing from prep where that is useful). The players then enact the needs and drives of their characters by addressing whatever the pressure is (IE usually an obstacle). Once this is overcome, the cycle repeats. Setting/situation/environment are tools, which the GM will employ and which the players can reference in describing their character's actions. This fiction is important, as it provides structure and constraints on the action declarations and what the GM can declare, but there's no goal of enacting any certain fiction. There's no specific situations that are anticipated to come up or need to be enacted to drive the story forward, except as part of the above loop (and thus how they impact the PCs and their needs/drives).

Both types of play can take into account things like genre, tone, desired themes and agendas.

One test you can use which will often distinguish the two types of play is to ask whether or not you could produce essentially the same outcomes if a different group of characters was used. So, as a fairly simplistic example: The Tomb of Horror is clearly a trad (even classical, the most trad of trad) scenario. Regardless of which PCs enter within, they will have largely similar experiences. The goal will always be to survive and penetrate the Lich's sepulcher and gather Acererak's treasures. Different parties may have slightly different mixes of abilities, rogues vs wizards vs fighters vs clerics, etc. but they will encounter exactly the same challenges and probably overcome them, or fail, in very similar ways, only varying in detail at the level of what specific action or resource is employed in each case at a given juncture.

Now, let us imagine a Dungeon World equivalent: A group of players has, through PC build choices and actions taken over many levels of play, developed and followed up on the tales of a lost Tomb. Finding this tomb and penetrating it embodies the final Dangers of the Campaign Front of the DW campaign! The redoubtable Paladin wishes to purge the evil lich from the world. The wizard wishes to obtain fantastic arcane knowledge with which to rescue his mother from a magical prison. The halfling thief doesn't like to admit it, but he's come to admire that stupid foolish paladin! The cleric has been commanded by his god to defeat the lich and recover the Staff of Ruin to atone for his past sins. There may be a partial map (with holes in it) which the GM has prepared to help him describe this place, but the story is about these particular characters. That map was created BECAUSE they have the specific needs and drives which I have described, it won't exist for any other unique group of high level DW PCs. The game play is not ABOUT the Tomb of Horrors, its about Robert de Morgan, Zorbilar the Magnificent, Harry Quickfingers, and Father Charlie.

And the process of play for each of these games, while similar in the same way that many board games are similar, is distinct and in each case serves its particular ends.
 

not to me. I understand the conceptual difference, it simply does not matter much. It follows the rules. Notice you said combat, and we not once had an interference in combat in our examples. It came up a few times when 'your side' was asking, but that is it.
I mention combat because it is a principal locus of player agency in a lot of RPGing - hence why discussions about fudging etc often focus on combat.

Imagine generalising will I kill this Orc? to any other question about what might happen next in the fiction, via a process other than the GM tells you, and you can see what is happening in a high player agency game of the sort I'm talking about.
 

Imagine generalising will I kill this Orc? to any other question about what might happen next in the fiction, via a process other than the GM tells you, and you can see what is happening in a high player agency game of the sort I'm talking about.
I understand the difference, I just do not consider it particularly important. There are a lot of things that matter more to me, setting, class system, spell system, crunchiness, .... whether the DM has to roll a die for some decisions or not barely registers
 

this?

sounds like a misunderstanding, nothing more
Not even close.

Normally, the GM manipulates the fiction to produce the desired outcome.
As your post did not say: Do you support this or not?

I'm sure opposed in general to the idea that "no matter what dumb thing the PCs do they find the clue". I play it much more like: "If the PCs capture the evil lords close henchman...and they just kill him...then they LOOSE everything that NPC knows. I do NOT just "drop in" heachman number two that knows exactly what the first one knew...just so the PCs get a chance to learn it.....again.

The same way I'm not about to teleport a clue like a map scroll all over the world so each time a PC defeats a foe they "might" find it.

Though I also never do cartoon or "fan/buddy" stuff like "the goblin falls down dead...and...oh...out of the dead goblin's pocket a sroll rolls out on the floor and unrolls it self so you can read the words "treasure map" on it."

There is no misunderstanding. This DM does what HE wants to do regardless of what the players want.
So if a DM tells a player they must play their character one set way.....that is wrong, right?

So....why is it not wrong for a player to do this for the DM? Why does the player get to say "this NPC must be this way and you must obey me DM!"

And what exactly is the check and balance if the DM can't say "no"? A player can just say "oh the shopkeeper gives me everything for free", and the DM just says "yes, player".?
 

So if a DM tells a player they must play their character one set way.....that is wrong, right?
Yep.

So....why is it not wrong for a player to do this for the DM? Why does the player get to say "this NPC must be this way and you must obey me DM!"
They generally can't and don't. I don't see where you are getting that from. Are you saying that's what some of the background features do? Because they don't. Again they're mostly just short cuts and at BEST they force the DM to do very little.

And what exactly is the check and balance if the DM can't say "no"? A player can just say "oh the shopkeeper gives me everything for free", and the DM just says "yes, player".?
Where are you getting this from? It's just not a thing. The player cannot simply do this. Not in D&D, not in any game I am aware of.

There is a vast difference between giving players some leeway to do what they want/like and the players telling the DM the DM MUST act in a certain way and MUST have specific things happen. NO ONE in this thread is stating free reign to do the latter - it's just not a thing.

Again, are you extrapolating this from the background feature discussion? Because NOWHERE in there on any side is anyone saying the players can just tell the DM to roll over and stop challenging them.
 
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Are you extrapolating this from the background feature discussion? Because NOWHERE in there on any side is anyone saying the players can just tell the DM to roll over and stop challenging them.
Everyone dances around this point and is vague.

If the player suggests anything and the DM has no veto, then it's forcing the DM to do something...even if the DM is a "fan of the players" and just agrees to do so "right away player whatever you say".

It's exactly like a DM saying "your character must get mad and chase after the gnome", but the player then saying "no, my character will just let it go". No player would want to "ok, my character chases the gnome and is mad because the DM told me to".

And if the player can't suggest, change, alter or create anything....then what exactly are they doing? Just decorations?

Even a "good" player might "suggest" a ton of stuff the DM does not want in the world. So, does the DM just roll over to the players automatically or can they say "no" or "well, not exactly like you said".

And IF they can....they CAN do it EVERY time a player suggested something. Right?

And if the DM can't say "no"...what is the control for the exploitive players or worse? When a player just says "oh...snicker, snicker, the temple of Good is selling healing potions half of today". Does the DM just roll over and say "Wow, cool idea...your wish is so in the game player." ?
 

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