D&D General What is player agency to you?

[hawkeyefan]

IMO. Then maybe just articulate those merits or lack thereof instead of articulating that an opinion is wrong because of a lack of familiarity?

I mean… @pemerton has stated his case and provided a considerable amount of support for it.

That’s met with some variation of “different games are different”.

How can anyone provide commentary on merits that are absent? The argument is unsupported. No one has offered an example of the sort he provided to support the take that D&D is a high agency game. Nothing but suppositions have been offered as counter.

If your argument displays a lack of familiarity with one or more things that you are comparing, then why shouldn’t that be pointed out?

Does filling out a lottery ticket in which the numbers range from 1 to 40 provide less agency than filling out one where the numbers range from 1 to 60?

The number of options does not automatically increase agency. Why are there two or five options, what are these options, who decides what options there are. That to me is far more relevant to agency than whether there are two or five

If my two options are, do you want to attack the enemy now or search for allies first, that is more agency than choosing between five kinds of beer in a tavern.

Oh sorry, I didn’t think I needed to explain that the options would be meaningful and not something like the kinds of beer in a tavern.

If number of options is the measure of agency then doesn't D&D sandbox campaign win out over most PbtA games? After all in D&D you have numerous subclasses by class X skill proficiency or expertise X spells X feats X RP influence X actions X equipment. After careful calculation, that a gazillion different combinations! In DW you only have less than a dozen classes and equipment is generalized, where's the detailed difference of a rapier versus a halberd? Don't even get me started on the lack of feats.

Given the context of a railroad that @Maxperson had introduced, I thought it would be clear I was speaking of options for the way the game could go rather than character build options and the like.

Throw in that anyone who doesn't have an interest in playing dozens of different games simply can't conceive of how other games work so just tell them that everything they say is invalid.

Okay… so why do you care? If you don’t want to play any other games, then why do you care at all if someone says some other games allow for more player agency?

I’ve seen you use the shrug emoji dozens of times. Why not use it once and then move on?

If you value those two options and don't value the other three, absolutely. Agency is more than just how many options you have. Options are just one aspect of agency and someone who values a tremendous amount of options will FEEL like a game with more options has more agency. Someone who value the quality of his options over the quantity is going to FEEL like the fewer quality options is more agency. In both cases, though, the players have full agency since they are not being railroaded. Only the aspects they subjectively value make agency SEEM more or less.

You said that the lowest agency was a pure railroad. Where the DM had taken away all player choice. So what if instead of no choice, the DM gives the players two? This would be at any single instance of play… there’s some guards, you can fight them or you can talk to them, those are your options.

Certainly this allows for more agency than the railroad, correct?

Then what if the DM added another option? You can also sneak by the guards? What happens then; more agency, less, the same? Why?

I agree that the quality of choices matters quite a bit. But given we were talking about railroads, I was starting at a very basic level.

But if we look at @Oofta ‘s post about character options, what would you say the impact would be on 5e if each and every class had abilities and options that improved their performance in the exploration and social interaction pillars? What if those pillars were as equally supported as the combat pillar?

Would that increase or decrease player agency, or leave it the same?

 

[Raiztt]

I’ve seen you use the shrug emoji dozens of times. Why not use it once and then move on?

 

[Oofta]

I mean… @pemerton has stated his case and provided a considerable amount of support for it.

That’s met with some variation of “different games are different”.

How can anyone provide commentary on merits that are absent? The argument is unsupported. No one has offered an example of the sort he provided to support the take that D&D is a high agency game. Nothing but suppositions have been offered as counter.

Plenty of people have given examples of agency in D&D, you just reject them because you base your judgement of agency on a specific style of play. Since you've defined agency as players having narrative control of the game instead of players having options on how to achieve goals in the game nothing other than PbtA games and similar can have agency.

Characters in games can never have agency because they aren't real. The only ones that can have agency are the people sitting at the table playing the game.

If your argument displays a lack of familiarity with one or more things that you are comparing, then why shouldn’t that be pointed out?

When you use it as an excuse to completely dismiss other people's ideas and opinions, the people who have not played other games extensively is not the problem. I've read up on, watched streams for other games. In other threads there was helpful explanation and links provided.

Last, but not least, the theoretical thread topic was agency in D&D. All you've done is say that D&D can't live up to your expectations because they aren't PbtA style games.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean… @pemerton has stated his case and provided a considerable amount of support for it.

That’s met with some variation of “different games are different”.

How can anyone provide commentary on merits that are absent? The argument is unsupported. No one has offered an example of the sort he provided to support the take that D&D is a high agency game. Nothing but suppositions have been offered as counter.

If your argument displays a lack of familiarity with one or more things that you are comparing, then why shouldn’t that be pointed out?




Oh sorry, I didn’t think I needed to explain that the options would be meaningful and not something like the kinds of beer in a tavern.



Given the context of a railroad that @Maxperson had introduced, I thought it would be clear I was speaking of options for the way the game could go rather than character build options and the like.



Okay… so why do you care? If you don’t want to play any other games, then why do you care at all if someone says some other games allow for more player agency?

I’ve seen you use the shrug emoji dozens of times. Why not use it once and then move on?




You said that the lowest agency was a pure railroad. Where the DM had taken away all player choice. So what if instead of no choice, the DM gives the players two? This would be at any single instance of play… there’s some guards, you can fight them or you can talk to them, those are your options.

Certainly this allows for more agency than the railroad, correct?

Then what if the DM added another option? You can also sneak by the guards? What happens then; more agency, less, the same? Why?

I agree that the quality of choices matters quite a bit. But given we were talking about railroads, I was starting at a very basic level.

But if we look at @Oofta ‘s post about character options, what would you say the impact would be on 5e if each and every class had abilities and options that improved their performance in the exploration and social interaction pillars? What if those pillars were as equally supported as the combat pillar?

Would that increase or decrease player agency, or leave it the same?

D&D, as I play and run it, has the amount of agency I want. Other games have more, but that is not relevant to my interests.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Plenty of people have given examples of agency in D&D, you just reject them because you base your judgement of agency on a specific style of play. Since you've defined agency as players having narrative control of the game instead of players having options on how to achieve goals in the game nothing other than PbtA games and similar can have agency.

Characters in games can never have agency because they aren't real. The only ones that can have agency are the people sitting at the table playing the game.


When you use it as an excuse to completely dismiss other people's ideas and opinions, the people who have not played other games extensively is not the problem. I've read up on, watched streams for other games. In other threads there was helpful explanation and links provided.

Last, but not least, the theoretical thread topic was agency in D&D. All you've done is say that D&D can't live up to your expectations because they aren't PbtA style games.

Unless it's @pemerton style 4e.

 

[bloodtide]

Sports is actually a great analogy.

Is it though? For an RPG?

A player in any sport has zero agency. Other then Reality, there are a ton of GMs with a ton of Rules telling a player what they can and can't do.

Take Football. The "Dragon" team has the ball..and only have two choices: run or throw the ball. Sure they can make a "play" all they want and dance around the field: but it utterly does not matter at all what they do. No matter what in a couple seconds the "round" will be over...and more then likely no points are scored.

So a player in sports has no choice but to just play the game by both the rules and the harsh oversight of the people in charge.

One important question here. Do railroads have agency or not? You often can’t change the main plot line, but you can often advance the plot line using various strategies. Is that agency or not?

Yes.

Unless your running a Simple, Silly, Wacky, Casual or Cartoon type game no single PC can change The Plot.

In a railroad nothing you do matters. You are being forced down a single rail, so you have no true options. If "options" A-Z all end in the result of AA, then they are effectively one single option with an illusion of choice.

It does.....this comes back Full Circle to just Players Complaining.

Lets take the most simple Railroad Plot ever: Giant Rats in the Cellar. The PCs are hired by an NPC to "get rid of the giant rats in the cellar". This simple adventure is the whole game world: The PCs can do NOTHING else other then "get rid of the giant rats in the cellar". It's a railroad.

Once in a while some players might come up with something to get rid of the rats while staying fr away from the cellar......but the other 99.9% of games the PC MUST go to the cellar and MUST directly deal with the giant rats. And as 75% of RPGs are all about combat, 99.9% of the games will be about killing the giant rats. But sure in that .1% of games where you have a bard with a pipe, a vermin druid, a gnome animal friend and a ratfolk princess, THAT group might get rid of the rats in a peaceful way.

The players are "free" to "try" anything....with in the game reality and the limits of their PCs. Like the players might think of the "clever" idea to pour a bunch of water in the cellar and drive the rats out. And sure it might work. Except the PCs have no way of getting "tons of water" into the cellar.

This is where the cries of "player agency" are whined by the players. They gather all the wagons in town and want to fill them with water from the river, roll them across the land, and then dump the water into the cellar. For any DM that is not a fan of the players/characters or with common sense...this would be impossible.

BUT as soon as the DM says "um...the water leaks out of the wagon as the wagon is not sealed and waterproof" the players will whine and cry that they have no agency in the game and how the DM is "just making old wooden wagons leak water" to directly mess with them.

Though it's not impossible to seal up a wagon to hold water...if you have the supplies to do so. Or even build a water tank into each wagon. But that sure is going to be a lot harder and take a lot longer then just the PCs going over to the cellar and killing the giant rats.

The whole idea of a railroad is that you cannot change the tracks or stop the ride. You will go where you are required to go and the events that are required to happen will happen. In its crudest form, you're simply subject to constant denial until you choose the correct option. In its more subtle form, you will think you are choosing your own path, but it will be invisibly twisted behind the scenes to ensure that what is supposed to happen, does.

Right, the plot of the adventure moves forward no matter what the PCs do. It's Linear Momentum....or "History". Though a player trying to derail or stop the plot is just being a jerk too.

 

[Oofta]

Unless it's @pemerton style 4e.

True. Too bad that for some reason you couldn't apply exactly the same principles to 5E if you wanted to. I mean, obviously players can't ask for specific side quests, have a say in what direction the campaign take or any of those things. I've just been hallucinating when I thought that was happening.

 

[Micah Sweet]

True. Too bad that for some reason you couldn't apply exactly the same principles to 5E if you wanted to. I mean, obviously players can't ask for specific side quests, have a say in what direction the campaign take or any of those things. I've just been hallucinating when I thought that was happening.

You can, and as I've said I do incorporate player quests into my campaign prior to play, if the players want them. But that doesn't make it a narrative game, which is how Pemerton played 4e.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Plenty of people have given examples of agency in D&D, you just reject them because you base your judgement of agency on a specific style of play. Since you've defined agency as players having narrative control of the game instead of players having options on how to achieve goals in the game nothing other than PbtA games and similar can have agency.

I haven't done that. I've intentionally kept my discussion here on 5e alone, except for perhaps a couple of comments about things others have said.

But no one else has offered examples of play of two contrasting styles and pointed out how they're different. I have done that at a basic level... I've talked about some D&D games I've played in versus others I've played in or run, and the differences there. @pemerton has provided several examples of play from multiple games.

Most others have compared their 5e game to ideas they have about other games, or hypotheticals about other games.

I'm asking anyone else to offer two actual examples and compare them.

Characters in games can never have agency because they aren't real. The only ones that can have agency are the people sitting at the table playing the game.

Yes, this is very true.

When you use it as an excuse to completely dismiss other people's ideas and opinions, the people who have not played other games extensively is not the problem. I've read up on, watched streams for other games. In other threads there was helpful explanation and links provided.

There's still something lacking... and I don't say this to dismiss you, but it's simply true.

Look, I don't play GURPS. My experience with it was maybe two or three sessions decades ago. I have a very rudimentary knowledge of the game. That doesn't mean that I can't have any insights about it at all... but it doesn't make me as capable of discussing the ins and outs of the game as those who are very experienced with it. Why would I expect it to?

No one is being dismissive of what you say. It's actually being acknowledged. It's the strength of your claims that's being challenged.

Last, but not least, the theoretical thread topic was agency in D&D. All you've done is say that D&D can't live up to your expectations because they aren't PbtA style games.

No, I've done nothing of the sort. As I said above, I've only been talking about 5e in my posts.

But very nice attempt to dismiss what I've been saying as off topic, while simultaneously complaining about being dismissed yourself.

D&D, as I play and run it, has the amount of agency I want. Other games have more, but that is not relevant to my interests.

I can't and wouldn't argue with that.

 

[mamba]

Oh sorry, I didn’t think I needed to explain that the options would be meaningful and not something like the kinds of beer in a tavern.

As before, to me it is more relevant why there are these options (they arise naturally from the situation), what they are, and who decided what options are available.

So you will still have to narrow this down. Having two ‘realistic’ options is still better than having one ‘realistic’ and four ‘unrealistic’ ones, where ‘realistic’ refers to probable chance of success or desirability of the outcome

I guess in summary I can say that no, in most cases the number of options has no impact on agency to me, provided that number exceeds 1.
If you try hard, you can probably construct a scenario where it does, but outside of that… I disagree with the simple equation of more options = more agency

Also, all of this assumes the players cannot simply say ‘I do this instead’ and ignore whatever options you presented, which is an option in most cases