D&D General What is player agency to you?

[clearstream]

I do love more traditional gaming. It's what I cut my teeth on after all. Again, my own issue has more to do with 5e D&D and I falling out of love with each other rather than any issue with traditional gaming itself. Or to put it in Marie Kondo terms, "5e no longer sparks joy." To me, 5e has become something of a "D&D Milquetoast Edition." It feels a bit unoffensive but bland. I feel nowadays like the game doesn't really have anything interesting to say or add to the conversation in the hobby.

What game texts of high utility to trad do you currently love?

 

[pemerton]

Not sure why it matters what the reason was. A while ago you said that turning left or right on a hallway is agency, even if you have no information about what lies in either direction. So going ‘over here’ for no reason still is agency.

I remember that:

@pemerton agreed not too far back that deciding where to go in a dungeon is agency (albeit in his view rather limited), even if you have nothing to go on.

At the time I wasn't sure what post of mine you were referring to, but didn't feel the need to quarrel. I've now gone back over the pages preceding that post of yours (which for me sits at the top of page 110).

On page 105 there is this:

As for (2), if the GM is always at liberty to negate/veto, then the player is really just making suggestions that the GM can choose to take up or not. I regard that as low agency. Taken literally, the player isn't playing the game at all, just making suggestions to the GM who is playing solo.

that is covered by 2) If you say ‘I go left’, that is what you do.

So I think this is the basis for your post on page 110.

The reason I didn't feel the need to quarrel is that, in a certain sort of RPGing - classic dungeoncrawling, where the goal of play is to beat the dungeon, by first exploring it and then systematically looting it - the exploration phase of play is part of the process of identifying the parameters of the puzzle that needs to be solved.

If there's no puzzle to be solved - for instance, because the GM is not holding the details of the situation constant - then the exploration phase of play is not part of an overall agency-laden process. It's just a prompt to the GM to narrate something.

 

[Aldarc]

What game texts of high utility to trad do you currently love?

High utility to trad? I'm not sure what you mean by that. There are a number of more traditional or mainstream games that I enjoy and that spark joy in me.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I read @hawkeyefan's question as being addressed, ultimately, to the player of the character, not to the imaginary capabilities of the imaginary characters. I read @Maxperson as interpreting it the same way, given his references to roleplaying and to mechanics, which are phenomena that obtain in the real world among the players, not in the imaginary world of the characters.

Yeah, I should have been clearer that I meant “the player of a high level wizard…”.

With that perspective established, I take hawkeyefan's implicit point to be that the player of the high level wizard has a great deal of agency to declare changes to the gameworld - creating things, changing things, destroying things, moving different people here or there, etc. Whereas the player of the low level fighter does not have comparable agency.

The fact that the player of the fighter can, through a particular technique, bring it about that the GM forms a view about what should happen to the gameworld seems a much more oblique type of agency to me!

Absolutely right. The player of the wizard character can enact their will on the game in so many ways, and the DM is obliged to allow it per the rules.

Meanwhile the fighter and his roleplay is subject to all kinds of judgement on the part of the DM. Apparently even when the rules say otherwise.

Thanks for the explanation. Part of the reason I don't want to play narrative games is because I DM so much. I like just sitting back and enjoying only being responsible for my PC and how they react, I'm grateful that someone else is putting effort into creating the world and making it come to life when I get to play. It just engages different reward centers for me.

Honestly, this may be the best description advocating for lower agency play that’s come up in this thread.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't agree with that. I agree there may be a difference in how a game feels versus how much agency there may actually be, but I don't think that perception changes what's actually true.

That's what I said. It does not change what is actually true. Agency = agency. You have it or you don't. Your perception just makes it seem like more or less agency, depending on which aspects of agency you value more and which you value less.

Picking a door and setting it as an obstacle does set certain options, though. The options exist because the DM chose to place a locked door there.

How is the DM choosing options that he doesn't even know exist?

If the door didn't exist, the players could walk through it, look through it, throw a torch through it, or ignore it (and so on). If there's a locked door, they can't do all those things without first addressing the lock. So they can try to pick the lock... with a DC set by the DM... or they can try to smash the door... with a DC set by the DM... or they can use a spell.

Sure. The door gets rid of some options, but that's not the same as choosing what options are available. There are thousands upon thousands of possibilities, depending on party make-up, items, environment, creativity, etc. Perhaps even millions. There's no way the DM can be choosing them. Eliminating a few like simply being able to walk through an opening? Sure.

But the DM is also free to add any other defenses to the door. Perhaps it's magically barred, or locked with an arcane lock spell. And so on.
All of these decisions influence what options are available to the players.

Yep. Influence =/= chooses what options are available, though.

I don't think it does. He's an extreme example. But look how many folks were much closer to his side on the whole Position of Privilege feature. Or any anything that obliges the DM to rule a certain way.

So what. That still doesn't mean that they are acting like a bad DM in their games. You're looking at a 3 and calling it a 10. No. Only a 10 is a 10.

It's not so much about the extreme examples... those are easy to spot and to avoid, if so desired. It's more about the subtle instances that are hard to spot until one's had sufficient exposure to play that reveals them.

It's EXACTLY about the extreme examples, because it's the extremes that are bad. If you aren't at an extreme, you're within the bounds of normal.

Because they'd have more ability to affect play. They'd have more means to do so.

In other words... more agency.

That's not agency. Agency is binary. You have it or you do not.

Greater influence or lesser influence doesn't alter your agency(the ability to make choices that affect the world). There's nothing in agency about degree. Degree is simply an aspect you can value more or less and if you value it more, having a greater degree of influence will make agency FEEL greater to you than in a game where you have less of it.

 

[pemerton]

Remember when you were saying you didn't need extensive knowledge of every game ever to analyse aspects of them?

No. Which post do you have in mind?

Narrativism is literally just playing make believe where each player is a little DM. Literally any game can have that sit ontop of it. I could be playing candy land and sit there and just make up stories and narratives while I did it.

This has nothing to do with what I mean by "narrativism", which is the same as what @AbdulAlhazred means by the terms (I think he may have been the first poster to use it in this thread). It's a technical term coined by a particular RPG designer and critic (Ron Edwards). It has nothing to do with "each player being a little GM". And not every game can support it.

Since DMs and groups are free to enforce or ignore rules at will, I don't see how a style of play could even in principle be prohibited by a game system.

Here's a game system: The player declares what their PC does, and then the GM replies with whatever they think makes sense to them.

That system will not support narrativist play, because it does nothing to put player priorities at the centre of play. Of course you could change it, into something like The player declares what their PC does, and then the GM replies by either narrating how their PC achieves it, or introducing some complication which stands in the PC's way whether as threat or conflicting opportunity. Now you've got something in the neighbourhood of Apocalypse World without dice, which is a thing Vincent Baker has talked about.

How do you make 4E narrativist then?

By having regard to, and building on, the things I talked about in this post:

*The way that PC build elements embed the PCs within situations of thematic tension and potency, that have no particular resolution built into them;

*The way that the default setting, as presented in the PHB, MM and DMG (and as explained in the Worlds & Monster "preview", which is one of the best GMing books produced for D&D), creates the "stage" and the material for those thematic conflicts to be established, pursued and resolved;

*The role of play-authored quests, which fairly obviously connect to the preceding two points;

*The obvious similarities between skill challenges and other forms of "closed scene" resolution (such as HeroWars/Quest, Maelstrom Storytelling, the Burning Wheel Duel of Wits, etc), which rely on a certain "looseness" of framing and which cannot work if the default method of resolution is for the GM to work out what happens based on reference to notes/map key/etc (you can see this being discussed in the 2012 thread that I linked to just above);

*The transparency of the combat resolution mechanics, which (i) by default, provide a dramatic narrative of heroes-under-pressure-who-then-dig-deep-and-rally-to-overcome-their-opponents, (ii) give players a tremendous amount of latitude in deciding what sorts of actions to declare and thus how any given combat will actually unfold from moment to moment, and (iii) lead to the thematic concerns/orientation of players and their PCs being manifested in play, rather than having to be imposed via rules-negation/ignoring or rules-independent narration - the first time D&D has actually achieved this out of the tin.​

There's probably more that could be said, but that's the gist. The influence of (then) contemporary RPG design, and especially Forge-informed design, seems obvious - and was borne out by remarks by Rob Heinsoo at the time of launch about indie RPG influence on the game. (He also noted how the presentation of the game departs from the focus of indie RPGs.)

The DMG2 elaborates on some of this, although it also heads in a "shared narration/worldbuilding" direction that is probably optional relative to the points I've made.

My view is that a good chunk of the above - and hence a good prediction of the ensuing controversy - was foreshadowed by Ron Edwards in these passages:

if Simulationist-facilitating design is not involved, then the whole picture changes. Step On Up is actually quite similar, in social and interactive terms, to Story Now. Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things:

*Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. This isn't an issue of whether Author (or any) Stance is employed at all, but rather when and for what.

*Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion.

*More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.

*Reward systems that reflect player choices (strategy, aesthetics, whatever) rather than on in-game character logic or on conformity to a pre-stated plan of play.​

Fortune-in-the-Middle as the basis for resolving conflict facilitates Narrativist play in a number of ways.

*It preserves the desired image of player-characters specific to the moment. Given a failed roll, they don't have to look like incompetent goofs; conversely, if you want your guy to suffer the effects of cruel fate, or just not be good enough, you can do that too.

*It permits tension to be managed from conflict to conflict and from scene to scene. So a "roll to hit" in Scene A is the same as in Scene B in terms of whether the target takes damage, but it's not the same in terms of the acting character's motions, intentions, and experience of the action.

*It retains the key role of constraint on in-game events. The dice (or whatever) are collaborators, acting as a springboard for what happens in tandem with the real-people statements.​

All of the above can be seen in 4e. Just giving some examples in order of those seven dot points:

*Picking up on a GM framing into a player-authored quest, or helping to establish one, will often involve author stance (ie the player declares the action in order to help sharpen thematic relevance and conflict, and then retrofits the requisite character motivation);

*Come and Get It - why the NPC/creature moves towards the PC can be resolved, ad hoc and casually, in the course of resolution, without being built into the system element (the attack power) per se;

*Skill challenges, as per the examples and discussion in the 2012 thread I linked to, or the Yan-C-Bin example in this thread;

*Magic item wishlists;

*Damage on a miss;

*The use of all sort of player-side "widgets" (powers, action points, healing surges etc) that permit the thematic meaning of the basic resolution elements to vary from conflict to conflict as the player makes choices that reflect what they take to be at stake for their PC;

*The role of checks in skill challenges, again as per the examples and discussions I've pointed to.​

These are some of the obvious ways in which 4e is resolutely non-simulationist in its approach to action resolution, and hence facilitative of "story now" RPGing. And they were and remain hugely controversial.

 

[pemerton]

IMNSHO, turning up your nose and saying "Oh, me, i prefer games with high player agency, as opposed to your low player agency games" is definitional of condescending one-true-wayism.

Just to be clear - you're saying it's unreasonable to have preferences grounded in the varieties of play experience?

If that is what you're saying, I find it pretty weird.

In your post, one thing that really stands out to me is how irrelevant that all is to my experience as a player and a DM. Not irrelevant in an insulting or condescending way, but in a literal way. The games that I run and that my players enjoy are very much "Here is some naughty word that is happening to you, how will you solve this problem" and "who the characters are" (which sounds extremely navel-gaze-y) just doesn't come up.

I notice that you are very careful to avoid any definitional condescension in your characterisation of others' play as navel gazing!

 

[pemerton]

In my sandbox the character declares "I go over there" and I check my notes for who is there, what they're doing, think about how they're going to react to the PC. Since I'm not running a module, this can upset the whole apple cart so to speak. As the campaign continues to unfold things can go in a radically different direction from what I had originally expected.

I don't know what you mean by "upsetting the whole apple care". Or why you would have expectations.

Enemies turn into allies, they decide to pursue something I just threw in during a moment of improvisation instead of the big bad I had been expecting. I'd say my players go off the rails on a regular basis, but I don't really have rails in the first place.

I don't plan plots.

<snip>

In my sandbox all I ask is that the group decides at the end of a session the general direction they're headed next session so I can lay some groundwork.

What makes someone a "big bad" in the absence of a plot? I feel like there's something I'm missing.

 

[FrogReaver]

I play and enjoy both equally. I find that narrative style games give me more agency in terms of filling out the world, forging my character's path and having a more equal role in developing cooperative experiences. The down side is there can be no coasting on days you're feeling tired and creatively drained. These games often need everyone to be on their toes and fully engaged. The up side is the sense of immediacy and the engagement of the players. It's a lot of fun and adds extra challenge. You really get to dig into who your character is. And it is cool that you know the GM has prepped very little, and players are forging their own destinies. No looking for those plot hooks. But, once again, it requires full attention and can go awry more easily, which even Ron Edwards admits in his annotated Sorcerer.

I enjoy traditional games because they give me more agency in terms of discovering plot hooks, solving mysteries in a traditional fashion, exploring ruins or a strange dark forest that the GM has created is fun. There is still plenty of room for character growth and I feel like I'm caught up in adventure. I enjoy free role play without the need to be guided by dice rolls, which can be disruptive. I enjoy having stretches without the constant pressure and busyness of PbtA games, for example. The downside is disengaging from the GM's plot or even plots if it's a sandbox. And sometimes what's important to my character can get lost.

In terms of agency, both styles can have high agency. Narrative games give players more because they are not relying on GM for all the world stuff. But this is not a scale of quality. Many times I don't want agency outside my character. Other times, I really love the story now style.

This got long winded...

First, Thanks for elaborating!

I added a bolded clause to your post. Why didn’t you phrase it as I did with that bold?

Or more to the point - Why are you only associating agency with doing the things the narrative game supports but not associating it with doing things non-narrative games support?

 

[soviet]

I do love more traditional gaming. It's what I cut my teeth on after all. Again, my own issue has more to do with 5e D&D and I falling out of love with each other rather than any issue with traditional gaming itself. Or to put it in Marie Kondo terms, "5e no longer sparks joy." To me, 5e has become something of a "D&D Milquetoast Edition." It feels a bit unoffensive but bland. I feel nowadays like the game doesn't really have anything interesting to say or add to the conversation in the hobby.

I feel exactly the same.

I do love traditional play including AD&D, MERP, and WFRP 1e. I also love more narr games. Different flavours for different moods.

I don't like 5e very much because I find it poorly designed and bland/milquetoast. But it stands on the shoulders of giants so to speak. It's a weak iteration of a great original design. So it's still a fun game of D&D with my friends even if I'd rather be playing a different version.